I fidget in the passenger seat as the white SUV exits the freeway and pulls onto the access road that leads to my house. I glance at the large, bearded man behind the wheel, then to the stereo, which plays country music neither he nor I are fond of. Changing the station might lead to the two of us talking, though, so it's left alone. I'm getting a ride home because four straight days of snow combined with the city's reluctance to plow my street has rendered my Jetta immobile.
He pilots the mammoth vehicle to the top of the hill, where my small bungalow lies quietly belching out steam from an ancient furnace. I breathe a sigh of relief at seeing my street finally cleared - and realize it's the first positive thought I've had all day. See, the man driving the SUV is my boss. And I've just been fired.
Well, not fired, exactly. Non-renewed. I'm told there's a difference. And it hadn't just happened today; it happened Monday, but I hadn't been able to make it in to teach all week on account of the snow, so I just found out. I lost my job because of a frivolous and false allegation of sexual harassment which, I'm sure, will be cleared up long after the damage is done.
Nevertheless, the cleared street makes it possible for me to embark on what is the perfect antidote to what is probably the worst day of my life. This weekend is the annual 8 Palmer ski trip, named after the old house we all lived in or around at one point or another in college. Two dozen or so twenty-somethings on a mountaintop, drinking beer and simmering in a Jacuzzi. The excitement lifts the corners of my lips as I rush the Jetta through the curvy hills that mark the drive to Athens, our point of departure.
I arrive just as the Cincinnati contingent of our party does and, after quick hugs and greetings, we systematically load up equipment and duffel bags into the five cars that will make up the caravan to West Virginia's Timberline ski resort. My car gets a special nod as the keeper of the keg. I take the responsibility seriously.
The four-hour drive tires me, and I keep up a conversation with my passengers to stay awake.
"We have the tap for the keg, right?"
"Oh, absolutely," Daggy, a lanky brunet photojournalist replies.
He verifies this with Greg, our de facto trip chairperson, via two-way radio.
"Yeah, we have the tap. Don't worry about it."
I continue to worry about the tap. I know my friends all too well.
I pull into the house (I am instructed to refer to it as "the lodge") driveway and gasp at the amount of snow that surrounds the property. It's easily six feet high in parts. The cleared paths resemble a maze. The garage, which would be useful considering our five cars and the two belonging to friends of ours arriving from Cleveland and D.C., is rendered useless by a tower of packed snow.
"Well, this is a problem," Greg nonchalantly remarks.
Greg does everything nonchalantly.
"Why?" I ask.
"Well. technically we're only supposed to have twelve people here."
I count off friends on my fingers.
"Me, Greg, Jenna, Jack, Justin, Daggy, Christine, Amy, Anne-Marie, Reba, Dara, Bill, Alex, Kara, Andy, Jen, Jess, and Mandy. Eighteen."
"Plus Kara's friends coming tomorrow, equals twenty."
"Well, we'll have to be inconspicuous."
"Burkeman, when have we ever been inconspicuous?"
"Definitely not the night we all got arrested."
He laughs at my bringing up an incident from freshman year. It seems both very distant, yet, with the camaraderie of my reunited friends, familiar.
Bill and I carry the keg to the backyard and dig a hole for it in the snow. Jack and Justin, who'd arrived hours before, gawk lazily from the steaming Jacuzzi.
"Okay, where's the tap," I ask.
"Uhh, let me go find it."
Bill returns inside and I catch up with Jack and Justin, two good friends whom I see irregularly. The conversation continues for some time, as the tap search is, apparently, not going well. I grow impatient; the primary motivation for my driving here in the middle of the night was the promise of cold beer. After the day I've had, I need one. Or ten.
"FUCK! WE FORGOT THE TAP!"
My smug happiness at knowing my suspicions were legitimate are unable to balance out my anger and frustration at being deprived of beer. I growl, "Son of a bitch," don trunks, and jump into the Jacuzzi. The warmth takes my mind away from the knowledge that the nearest town is a half hour away, and it's 3 a.m. - meaning the cold beer in the shiny metal keg next to me will be inaccessible until tomorrow. The only booze we have is liquor left over from our New Year's party and some beers Jack and Justin brought. I drink the Bud Light like water and toss the cans toward the lodge.
"Drink, Burkeman?" Jess calls from the kitchen.
"Rum and Coke, if you will, darlin'."
She fixes the drink and delivers it to the hot tub with a flair. I tip her a snowball, which she proceeds to mash into my face. I lean back and close my eyes.
I'm awoken by a commotion from inside.
"HOORAY FOR ALEX, HOORAY AT LAST! HOORAY FOR ALEX, HE'S A HORSE'S ASS!"
It seems Alex located the tap. The trip improves immediately.
The next three days are an alcohol-induced blur. Kara's friends arrive and are entertaining, Amy fixes chili, we play drinking games, and we stumble to bed at 5 a.m. every night. I succeed in being the last man awake each night, an accomplishment I regret each successive morning. Sunday arrives, and we pack up in preparation to head home.
10:30, the planned departure time, comes and goes. We finally get on the road around noon, the lodge's "checkout time,". or at least we try to. My Jetta won't start. I visualize what's happening under my hood: the electricity arcing from the plug wires to the engine block, instead of the spark plugs where it belongs. I lament not replacing the wires before this trip; they'd been a problem in bad weather before, and at noon, on Sunday, at the top of this mountain, "bad weather" is a massive understatement. Snow drifts like white blankets across the front of my car as I crank the engine, sweat of frustration dripping down my temples.
Finally, miraculously, the small engine sparks one cylinder, and I limp off behind the other four cars in our caravan. Christine and Daggy quietly observe from the back seat, owing to my front door locks being frozen (yet another enjoyable aspect of my beloved car).
The drive goes slowly, as the near-whiteout conditions make it impossible to see even the car in front of us, let alone the rest of the caravan. My left hand's fingers are white as they grip the steering wheel, right hand cupping the stick shift, feet working in a desperate waltz to keep the engine from stalling, and eyes squinting ahead to see Reba's 1999 Infiniti, her pride and joy.
"Burkeman, you're doing it all wrong, you can't hold down the gas like that," Daggy criticizes.
"If I don't, I'll stall the engine."
"No you won't."
I prove it to him, slowing our progress down the access road. Luckily, the car starts back up immediately. The five cars pull out onto the road that will take us to the bottom of the mountain, and, eventually, home to Ohio.
"I want nothing to do with this," I mutter to my passengers. It's a total whiteout. I am torn between keeping a safe distance from Reba and keeping a distance close enough to actually be able to see - something. I elect the former, and we make it about a mile down the road, crawling at 25 miles per hour.
"Maybe we can do this," I think to myself, as Reba's bright red brakelights come screaming out of the whiteness, searing into my retinas, demanding a reaction. My right foot complies, pushing into the narrow brake pedal. My wheels lock, and I skid toward the black Infiniti's license plate. The wrath of its owner, one Rebecca Miller, burns in my ears. I spin the wheel to the left, sliding past her rear bumper - and into the oncoming traffic of a massive dump truck.
I close my eyes.
The five cars pull off in the next driveway. I jump out of my car, and run to Reba's, which is now behind me in the caravan. She leaps from the driver's seat and we embrace, amazed and confused at how our cars are intact. Greg concludes we should return to the lodge until zero visibility conditions clear up. There are a few objections, but they're quickly silenced by Jen's flat refusal to drive any further.
We crawl back to the lodge. Those with jobs mill around, contemplating how to handle the possibility of missing work Monday. Reba and I sit on the couch, shaking, still processing what happened to us. Greg informs us it'll be $100 to spend another night in the lodge. Compared to what's happening outside, we feel it's the deal of the century. We watch movies and drink hot cocoa.
It's warm.
